Restaurant Voucher(out of date by 10 months)

J

JohnnyBoy

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Found a restaurant voucher last night & found that it was ~ 10months out of date.When my sister bought it for me ,the voucher says"expires 6 months after date it was written."
Can I a still use this as it seems to me that it's a good way for restaurants to get cash for nothing(a lot of people find vouchers,only for them to find them when they've expired!).Are they infringing my rights as a consumer in any way?
 
The [broken link removed] is too slow at the moment so all I can find is [broken link removed] (my underlining):
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Gift vouchers
Gift vouchers often have a specific lifetime, so if it is not marked on the back of a voucher you have to ask the store how long it is valid for. Be careful not to leave it in a drawer and forget about it because there is no legal obligation on the store to redeem it once it has gone out of date. Vouchers may represent money, but they also represent a contract with the shop to spend it within a certain amount of time. A chain store voucher from (for example) Belfast can only be redeemed in Dublin at the discretion of the shop - usually this is stated on the voucher.[/FONT]
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I have had this experience previously and all honoured the voucher, ring the restaurant up and ask. Generally they put expiry date from accounting reasons so definite end date for the credit.
 
But remember that if they don't honour it then they are perfectly within their rights.
 
You would expect that on mere customer relations grounds most service and retail industry outlets would honour vouchers that were a little out of date, as long as they were in good condition and not years out of date.
I had an experience maybe a year ago with a well known Dublin restaurant that you would expect to care about customers and it's good name, that left me wondering how poorly treated customers have become.
My mortgage broker as a thank you for putting my mortgage through him gave me a €100 voucher for Roly's bistro. On my first wedding anniversary I contacted them to book a table and check if I could still use the voucher which at this stage was 2 months out of date. Unbelievably I was told that they would have honoured it if it had been one month out of date but not two.
I realise that they do not have to honour these vouchers but would have thought that any forward thinking establishment would sacrifice the short term grab for continued customer loyalty. I mean it isn't as if they haven't already been paid for the voucher.
I complained to the manager and wrote them an e:mail to which I received no response. Needless to say I too take every opportunity to relate this story and have not been backk there since. Thankfully I have also been able to use my influence to steer any company entertaining we do away from there. In the long run they will lose much more than the €100 which would be the profit on a couple of decent bottles of wine.
I also see they have a book about the place out now which as you would expect doesn't dwell on customer service.
Still with my anger once again vented I feel better.
 
Hey Staunton 1,
I rang the restaurant(Citrus,east Village,Douglas Cork),told them it was 10 months out of date & they said absolutely no problem.An example of good PR.I think if you had tried within the month that they had mentioned,they would have still said no!
 
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